Relief for Baahubali as cinemas defy strike in Kerala

ALAPPUZHA: The Kerala Film Exhibitors Federation was on Saturday forced to withdraw its two-day-old shutdown protest against piracy, which hit multilingual Baahubali wide-released on Friday, with increasing number of cinemas defying the call.

After a meeting in Kochi on Saturday, its president P. V. Basheer Ahmed said the decision followed cinema minister Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan’s invitation for talks with stakeholders on Monday.

The meeting also decided to suspend at least 30 of its 380 members who openly supported wide release.

“We will continue to release the movies in our cinemas,” Mr Ahmed told DC. “We’ll also be attending the minister's meeting but I’m not sure about producers and distributors”.

The powerful bodies of producers and distributors have said they were yet to take a call on the invitation for talks.

The government-appointed committee headed by Adoor Gopalakrishnan to suggest reforms in the sector had last year recommended wide release as a solution to the growing piracy threat.

Talks on the report called by the minister in October last year failed as the exhibitors boycotted it.

Following this, he said the government was implementing the Adoor panel report but no follow-up meetings were called.

Producers said their leaders would not attend the meeting as they had other engagements.

“If they are fully committed to wide-releasing, why did they suspend 30 members for supporting us?” asked one of them.

“We were fighting for this for long. Now the competition commission has vindicated us”.

Kerala State Film Development Corporation (KSFDC) chairman Rajmohan Unnithan said those who breach the commission’s order should be punished.

“The meeting will focus on convincing them of the importance of the wide release,” he told DC.